1 Mother 2 Another

As I’ve written about ad nauseum,
Maddie’s got a bit of a shoe shopping issue. As in, she hates
it and won’t take off or try on shoes in the store. So I end
up buying a stack of shoes, bringing them home, and doing a massive
exchange a week later after she’s deigned to try them on.
Good times.


At the same time, I’ve become quite the online shopper
– having a toddler will do that to you. The difficulty here,
of course, is dealing with the returns hassle. No one wants to have
to pay to ship ten pairs of shoes to your house, try them on, then
pay to ship eight pairs back to the seller. Talk about expensive.


Fortunately, I’ve come across a couple of excellent
solutions.

First is href="http://www.vincentshoestore.us/">Vincent Shoes.
They make really cool shoes for toddlers and kids: a rather urban
feel, but still looking like kids’ shoes and not modern art.
They’re a bit pricey in the $30-$45 range, but they’re
incredibly well-made and Maddie’s favorites. She has the target="_blank"
href="http://www.vincentshoestore.us/shop/index.cfm?modelid=8">Betty
and the href="http://www.vincentshoestore.us/shop/index.cfm?modelid=24">Love
styles and would wear them everywhere if she could. Best of all,
the sales staff is friendly and happily answers long-distance
questions (they’re based in North Carolina, I think), and
they offer FREE RETURNS AND EXCHANGES on orders of $75 or more.
Which, if you think about it, is only a couple pairs of shoes,
which you’d buy anyway to check sizes. Pretty great.


My absolute favorite website for shoes, though, is target="_blank"
href="http://www.zappos.com/welcome.zhtml">Zappos. I
cannot tell you how much I love them. They’ve got major
brands like Stride Rite, Umi, Ecco, and Teva at competitive prices:
I found a pair of water sandals at Stride Rite for $26, and the
same pair at Zappo’s for $27. But since you don’t pay
tax, it ends up being cheaper! And here’s the best part: FREE
SHIPPING IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. Yes, mommies and daddies, they do FREE
overnight shipping to you, and will pay the shipping for you to
send back returns. And you have ONE YEAR to return the shoes. How
does it get any better??? I ordered two pairs of sandals for Maddie
at 11 p.m. on Saturday and they showed up on my doorstep Monday
morning. Don’t like any of them? Call them for a return
label, call UPS for a pickup, and you’re done. You NEVER
leave your home. I swear to you, I’m in love.


So if you’re kid’s like mine, don’t despair. The
Internet is here, and it’s a wonderful (cheap) thing.